


Belonging

by olivemartini



Series: the heavy hearts we hold together [3]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 08:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11551752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: Spencer gets vacation time after the incident, but Beatrice doesn't, so she compensates by spending all her free time with him, cooking and cleaning and stacking books where he can reach them, and totally not falling a little bit in love with him,





	Belonging

She watches the same thing that the rest of the world is watching, watches as Morgan get hits hard in the back of the head and Reid gets thrown down the front steps of the bank, how he tumbles and hits the ground hard, and that man with the gun makes his way down to him, smiling, and how no one in the crowd moves to help, just films all these videos that are making their way to news stations in choppy, distorted reports that makes it hard for Beatrice to get a timeline together.  

 _Not Reid,_ she thinks, gripping hard onto some stupid plushy octopus that she found tucked into one of the drawers, right beside the pack of stale ookies he ate her way through because there hadn't been time for a real meal.  Not since two days ago, when they started chasing down this stupid terrorist group that got them into this situation, with Rossi and Hotch MIA, and Morgan hurt, and Reid being tossed around at gun point like a little rag doll.   _Please, not Reid, I'll quit, if anything happens to him I'll quit._

Except she doesn't really quit, because nothing bad really happens to him, if you don't count two broken ribs and a super bad concussion and a collection of scrapes and bruises as bad, which apparently you don't when working for the BAU.  So he gets to go home, and Beatrice drives him there, then hovers behind him as he makes his way up the total three flights of stairs to his apartment.

"Do you need anything?"  She reaches out to help him, then thinks better of it, pulling back as he collapses down onto the couch.  

He looks over at her, a bit unimpressed, because he needs a lot of things, starting with those pain meds he's refusing to take because of a drug incident he doesn't want to tell her about and ending with a time machine so he can go back before this happened.  He clicks the television on, sees himself get knocked down the steps (something Morgan makes many gifs of in the next few days) and turns it back off with a grimace.  "Food?"

Spencer looks hopeful, and she doesn't have it in her to deny him anything he wanted.  "You got stuff for pasta?"

He blinks, then shakes his head.  "I've got enough to make a peanut butter sandwhich."

Beatrice nods, adding groceries to the long list of things that she would have to do for him.  "Peanut butter sandwiches it is."

 

 

Spencer gets time off from work.  Beatrice doesn't, but that doesn't stop her from spending all her spare at time at Reid's apartment, cooking and cleaning and dosing out the meds he isnt' outright refusing to take and stacking piles of books where he can reach them.  "You don't have to do this, you know."

"Yes, I do."  She turns toward him and waves a spoon in the air, flinging spaghetti sauce onto the cabinets.  "You know why, Reid?  Because you almost died.  And when you almost die, you get home cooked meals.  It's like, a rule."

He laughs, and she heaps the noodles onto two plates and curls up into what has become "her chair," totally forgetting to clean up the sauce she splattered all over the kitchen.

 

 

They watch the movies the second night, because Reid has a spitting head ache, which Beatrice attributed to all the reading.  Reid told her this wasn't likely, but he stopped protesting when he showed up her laptop and a logged in Netflix account, not to mention the good kind of coffee from down the street that he'd been deprived of.  

"You're amazing," he says, and their fingers brush when he takes the cup from him.  (Accidental, not long enough to be on purpose, she keeps track of those things now, though she can't imagine why.)  "Brilliant."

"Yeah, well."  She ignores her chair and settles down right beside him, close enough that she thinks it makes Spencer vaguely uncomfortable at first, but then he sort of relaxes into it and lets their two bodies mold together, shoulders and arms and hips pressed right up close together.  She can feel the ridges under his sweat pants where he still has to keep the band aids on, because he moves around to much to keep from reopening the scabs.  

 _So many scars,_ she thinks, absentmindedly taking his hand and running her fingers over his knuckles and the inside of his arm, touching all the freckles and the new cuts and the old marks from stories she didn't get to be a part of and he's not willing to tell her.  She can feel him watching her, but neither of them comment, so she just presses play on what will be a marathon of crappy sci-fi movies.

 

 

Morgan's there when she comes next time.

Or rather, she's there when Morgan lets himself in, and there's a bit of surprise for all three of them as Morgan takes in the scene- the messy pots and pan from where she as cooking lasagna (she can't cook much other than pasta), and Reid's arm around her shoulders, and her pressed up against him.  He raises an eyebrow at it before deciding maybe he doesn't really care, because it's not like he interrupted anything (he didn't, she reminded herself sternly, there is nothing going on here).  "Did you make enough for a third?"

Beatrice jumps up, and Spencer smiles, trying to get up before she pushes him back down.  

When Beatrice comes back with a plate for Morgan, she smiles and sits on the arm chair, not at her spot on the couch, and hopes that neither of the guys would read into it.

Spencer doesn't, but from the way Morgan looks at her, he does.

 

 

He's sleeping one day.

She thinks she should leave, because even after this past week of her cooking for him, and cleaning his apartment, and hanging out all the time, she's not sure they're the kind of friends where its okay for her to pick through his books until she finds Wuthering Heights and lay down on his couch to read until it's either time for her to go home or he wakes up.

He does wake up, hobbling out into the kitchen.  She sits up, a little worried, but he just smiles when he sees her.  "Sorry."  He stretched, wincing at the way it pulled at his ribs, and then made his way over to sit at the kitchen counter.  "I set my alarm for when you normally come, but it didn't wake me up."

Beatrice tries to hide how happy it makes her that he seems to look forward to her coming over to visit him.  "Don't worry about it."

They stay silent for a moment, both of them seeming to take in the sight of each other, where they both catalouge the little things about each other.  She's got a lot sh wants to ask him, but doesn't say any of it, letting him break the silence first.  "What are you reading?" 

She holds it up to show him, then gets up and moves to the kitchen, pushing the book gently into his chest as she does so.  Beatrice drops a kiss onto his cheek as she walks by, a harmless thing in the moment, and he stares after her when she moves away.  "You read.  I'll cook."

And he does.

 

 

She can't stop thinking about it, that small moment where her lips were on his cheek and he had his hair on her waist, like he had put it there sort of by instinct.  She wonders if he thinks about it, too, when he sits at the counter reading or talking about what he read while she cooks, or when they sit beside each other on the couch ( _not as close since the day Morgan walked in, but still close),_ or when she has to stop in during the mornings to give him a file from the team and he sends her off with a cup of coffee just the way she likes it.

"You go back tomorrow."  It's sort of a relief, because he really is her favorite from the team, even if they all did welcome her with open arms.  She's not sure it's fair to compare how she's starting to feel about Reid with what she feels for everyone else.  She's had enough of walking past is empty desk and absentmindedly straightening his pens, trying hard not to wonder what the rest of the team thinks they know about what she thinks about Reid.

The infuriating thing is, that no matter what they would think, they would probably end up being right.

"Yeah.  I do."  He says it with a smile, like it hadn't occurred to him until she reminded him.  

"Are you excited?  Or do you want to stay here?"  She wants to stay here, with him, where its safe, where the only danger they have to worry about is Morgan coming around to eat all the food she had worked hard to make.

"I want to go back."  He grabs onto her hand, a total of four seconds, which was definitely not an accident.   She tucks herself back into his side and tries not to really look at him, because then he might see how scared she is, how much she wants to keep him here, and she can't have that.  "It's where I belong."

 _You belong with me,_ and it's a desperate thought, one she has no claim to, so she banishes it before it can really take hold.

 


End file.
